About Us

WHO WE AREAdvance objective and competent financial advice

We’re a not-for-profit organization that formed to advance objective and competent financial advice. We are supported by consumer advocates, respected academics, and many financial advisors. Our goal? To make excellent advice available to all investors. By educating investors about their rights and promoting best practices among financial advisors, we seek to change the financial services industry and improve investor outcomes. Learn about our history and the activities we’ve been involved in on behalf of investors like you.

MISSIONPromote the vital importance of the fiduciary standard

Founded in 2011, the Institute for the Fiduciary Standard is a research and education institution – a think tank – whose single purpose is to promote the vital importance of the fiduciary standard in investment and financial advice.

The vision of the Institute is a fiduciary society where fiduciary principles and practices permeate the investment and financial advisory profession, and all advice serves investors’ best interest. (A fiduciary society is the term Vanguard founder John C. Bogle uses to describe the goal we must aspire to in ensuring that “trustees of other people’s money act solely in the interests of their beneficiaries.”)

The Institute’s research, education and advocacy on the fiduciary standard’s impact on investors, our capital markets and economy defines its core mission. The Institute seeks to inform and assist investors, policymakers, researchers and the industry. Learn more about the six key fiduciary duties and the long-term objective of The Institute.

Knut A. RostadPresident

Knut A. Rostad, MBA co-founded and chaired the Committee for the Fiduciary Standard and co-founded and is president of the Institute for the Fiduciary Standard, a non profit formed in 2011 to advance the fiduciary standard through research, education and advocacy. He served as the regulatory and compliance officer at Rembert Pendleton Jackson, a registered investment adviser in Falls Church, Virginia, for ten years until early in 2015.

The Institute for the Fiduciary Standard seeks to advance fiduciary principles in investment advice. The Institute has established the Institute’s Six Core Fiduciary Duties, the Fiduciary Declaration, Fiduciary September the Frankel Fiduciary Prize, and advocates for a true fiduciary standard before the SEC and DOL. Rostad has authored numerous articles, papers and regulatory comment letters. For more information visit the Institute at: thefiduciaryinstitute.org.

Rostad is the editor of The Man in the Arena: Vanguard Founder John C. Bogle and His Lifelong Battle to Serve Investors First, published by Wiley in December 2013. He is also a contributing editor at AdvisorOne; speaks frequently at industry conferences on fiduciary and compliance issues; and is regularly cited in media national and industry outlets. Rostad was named to Investment Adviser Magazine’s ‘IA 25’ list in 2014, which it calls “our annual list of the most influential people in and around the advisor industry.”
Rostad earned a BA in Political Science at the University of Vermont and an MBA from the Norwegian School of Management.

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What is a fiduciary advisor? A professional who embodies the highest standard of excellence. These professionals are bound by an undivided loyalty to clients; they put clients’ interest first, ahead of their own interests..